Assertion certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Shopify's previous org structure required product escalations to go directly to CEO Tobi Lütke

Glen Coates · Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Mar 8, 2023 · at 25:53

Glen Coates is the VP of Product at Shopify. He details the organizational flaws in Shopify's previous structure prior to consolidating product divisions into Core.

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“In the old org structure, the first point in the org chart where all those 14 teams actually, like, joined at the top was Tobii. So anytime someone has an escalation, the first point in the escalation tree was Toby”

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Insight
Coates: Bottom-up management destroys product cohesion across multi-product software suites
“The problem with power to the edges and bottoms up decision making Is that the value of a product like Shopify, or the value of, not even a product, like a product suite, like, because Shopify has many products, right? And look at Apple, right? Like Apple is l…”
Glen Coates Mar 8, 2023 ▶ 28:48 Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Mar 2028
Coates: Shopify competes directly with Amazon today
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Glen Coates Mar 8, 2023 ▶ 45:04 Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Coates: Product founders who hire a Head of Product are quitting
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Glen Coates Mar 8, 2023 ▶ 50:15 Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
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“These days I'm like, I'd be fucking terrified to be competing with Shopify in commerce. Not, we have a great platform, but like, we've got it joined at the hip to an incredible buyer aggregation engine, which is just hard to, it's hard to overcome how powerful…”
Glen Coates Mar 8, 2023 ▶ 44:38 Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
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Glen Coates Mar 8, 2023 ▶ 51:56 Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
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Glen Coates Mar 8, 2023 ▶ 55:26 Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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